


Summer Sun

by midoriverte



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Hidekane Week, Hidekane Week 2017, M/M, Mostly Fluff, day 7: ice cream on a hot day, light mentions of being self-conscious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 18:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11926551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midoriverte/pseuds/midoriverte
Summary: Kaneki hates going to the beach. It's hot, salty, and his extremely attractive boyfriend is half-naked for the world to see.Well, maybe that last part wasn't so bad...





	Summer Sun

**Author's Note:**

> beta'd by sondeneige

Kaneki was not a beach person.

He was _not_ a stick in the mud, as he repeatedly told Hide on the drive over. It was just that nothing about it appealed to him. It was hot. The water was salty. There were a lot of nearly-naked people staring at each other and, most awkwardly, staring at him.

And, okay, staring at his very attractive boyfriend. His hair was blonder than ever in the summer sun, his skin tanned and his body glistening from the ocean water.

He did not tell Hide that part.

“Yeah, stick in the mud,” Hide said as they searched for a parking spot.

“This stick in the mud is driving you,” Kaneki grumbled.

“The best stick in the mud.”

“Mmm,” Kaneki grumbled as he remembered that he also hated how crowded beaches were.

They finally found a spot and unpacked their umbrella and towels. They hadn’t brought food because Kaneki couldn’t eat any and Hide insisted he could just buy a hotdog.

They staked out a spot that Kaneki felt had too many people around but Hide insisted was perfect. After they set up, Hide took off his shirt with what Kaneki would describe as “reckless abandon”.

“Hide!” Kaneki said. He was torn between his desire to not swim and his desire to stick by Hide. He had visions of Hide swimming out too far in his enthusiasm and getting carried out to sea by a riptide so he reluctantly followed him.

“Aren’t you going to take your shirt off?” Hide asked.

“Nope,” Kaneki said, who had indeed waded into the water with his shirt on.

“Couldn’t you at least have worn a more… summer-y colour?”

“This is a summer-y colour,” Kaneki said. He had traded in his usual black for a navy blue shirt.

“Well,” Hide looked a little thrown off. “All right then.”

Kaneki was sure Hide wanted to see him shirtless, but Kaneki also did not want people staring at him.

He wasn’t sure how the water could be this cold when the sun was so blazing hot, but he waded in slowly as Hide bounded in further.

“Come on, the water’s great.”

It was not.

Hide waded back to Kaneki, a mischievous grin on his face.

“Hideyoshi Nagachika,” Kaneki said. “If you splash me I am breaking up with you.”

Hide put up his hands in surrender and let Kaneki wade in while he went ahead.

When he got to Hide, Hide immediately threw a beach ball at Kaneki, which Kaneki did not catch in time and smacked him in the face.

“Hide!”

“Where are your ghoul reflexes?”

“Where did you get that?!”

“It floated over!”

They stared at each other for a moment.

“Toss it back?” Hide asked hesitantly.

Kaneki sighed. He was here now, he might as well enjoy it.

He tossed the ball back and Hide caught it by the tips of his fingers.

They did that for a while, Hide catching far less throws than Kaneki did.

They went on for a while. Kaneki noticed some girls staring at Hide, and although he couldn’t blame them, it still made him nervous for reasons he couldn’t really describe.

Eventually the people who actually owned the ball happened to see them, thanked them for finding it, and took it back.

Hide sighed. “Well that was fun while it lasted, how about grabbing lunch?”

Kaneki nodded. Anything to get out of the water.

Kaneki sat under the umbrella, drinking a cold water while Hide went in search of a hot dog.

“Isn’t your wet shirt uncomfortable?” Hide had asked hopefully.

“Yep,” Kaneki said, in a way that suggested he was still not taking it off no matter what puppy dog eyes Hide gave him.

Kaneki was just not comfortable with people other than Hide seeing him half-naked. He didn’t fully understand it himself, but it always made him feel like people were preying on him.

Hide came back with his hot dog, loaded with a number of horrifying toppings that Kaneki could not name.

He flopped down on the towel beside Kaneki and began to eat his hot dog with indecent enthusiasm. Kaneki wanted to admonish him and remind him that just because they were at a beach did _not_ mean table manners went out the window, but unfortunately he ended up a little distracted.

Kaneki was ashamed and horrified at his reaction but, well, hot dogs were a suggestively-shaped food. And he was suddenly very aware that one of the few benefits of being at the beach and enduring everyone else getting to stare at his boyfriend half-naked was that he also got to look at his boyfriend half-naked.

Kaneki actually buried his face in his hands in horror.

“Are you okay?” Hide asked, finishing his hot dog. “Is the heat getting to you? Do you need to drink more cold water?”

Kaneki grabbed the bottle of water and dumped it over his own head.

Hide blinked. “There’s an ocean… right ther- nevermind.”

Pulling himself together, Kaneki said, “You should put more sunscreen on, swimming probably washed some of it off.”

“It’s supposed to be waterproof!” Hide pouted.

“We both know how well that worked last time,” Kaneki said. They both remembered the last time they went to the beach. It had ended with a very red Hide being coated in aloe vera for several days.

“Okay,” Hide relented.

Kaneki squirted the sunscreen into his hands and started rubbing it into Hide’s shoulders and over his back. Hide wasn’t particularly muscly at first glance, but actually getting to touch him showed that he was fairly toned. One other thing that no one could see unless they got as close as Kaneki could was that, in addition to Hide’s visible tan lines from the tank tops he wore all summer, he had freckles all over his shoulders from the summer sun.

“Uh, Kaneki?” Hide said, snapping Kaneki out of his thoughts. “That feels nice but I think the sunscreen is rubbed in now.”

“Oh, uh,” Kaneki was glad Hide could not see how hard he was blushing. “Better safe than sorry, you know.”

“Here,” Hide said, grabbing the bottle of sunscreen. “Let me do you.”

“H-huh?!”

Hide raised his eyebrows. “Sunscreen. You could use more of it.”

“I’m wearing a t-shirt, Hide.”

“R-right” Hide laughed, rubbing the back of his head nervously. “But the back of your neck and your arms, maybe?”

Kaneki wanted to point out that he could reach both of those places perfectly well on his own, but decided to allow Hide to do it.

Maybe it was just because he wanted to make himself feel better, but he could have sworn Hide spent more time rubbing his arms than strictly necessary.

“Now,” Hide said, setting the sunscreen bottle back down. “Let’s build sandcastles!”

“Seriously?” Kaneki said, raising an eyebrow.

“What’s wrong with sandcastles?” Hide demanded.

“Isn’t that sort of…childish?”

“That’s the whole point of going to the beach!” Hide huffed, and set out to build a castle with his hands.

Kaneki sighed, watching Hide pile sand up without a shovel or a bucket, and dug his own hands into the sand to help.

With just their bare hands, the sand castle was little more than a mound of sand with some attempts at towers that collapsed. Kaneki got up to get some seashells to use to decorate it. (Hide grabbed some shells himself but screamed when he found a hermit crab in one of them).

When they finally dug a small moat around the castle, Hide declared it complete. He found a little stick with a leaf on in and jammed it into the top.

“It’s our flag!” He said triumphantly.

Kaneki could not help smiling at that one.

“We should jump back in the water for a bit, to wash all this sand off us,” Kaneki said.

This time Hide did not take off running into the water but waded in slowly with Kaneki. Kaneki appreciated the gesture, even if he could tell Hide was impatient.

Once they finally got in deep enough to swim Hide dived under. He came up spluttering a second later, his head draped with seaweed.

“Kaneki, help! It got me!”

“How did you not see that before you dived in?” Kaneki sighed as he removed it and threw it far away where it hopefully would not drift back to them.

“You’re hopeless,” Kaneki said.

“You love me for it,” Hide said with a wink.

Kaneki splashed him.

“Hey!” Hide shouted.

“What?”

“You’ve relinquished your immunity to being splashed!” Hide said, drawing his arm back. Kaneki noticed Hide watched his reaction, making sure he was actually okay with being splashed.

“I suppose I have,” Kaneki smiled, and Hide grinned as he splashed Kaneki.

It was amazing how long a splash fight could go on when it was between two extremely stubborn people. Kaneki could only claim victory when Hide stumbled a little in the water and fell, when he tried to right himself, he ended up facing away from Kaneki and Kaneki grabbed him around the waist, gently pulling him close.

“I win,” Kaneki said, his chest against Hide’s bare back.

 

 

Hide swallowed. “I guess you do.”

Kaneki let Hide go, somewhat reluctantly.

The sun was starting to set, and they both got out of the water to dry off and pack up.

“Make sure you shake off all the sand on the towels!” Kaneki warned. “I don’t want sand all over my car!”

“Yes, _sir_ ,” Hide said with a laugh.

Kaneki blushed a little. Hide calling him “sir” sarcastically was not supposed to be hot, and he needed to pull himself together.

They had mostly packed up everything, but Hide noticed an ice cream cart on their way to the car and shot Kaneki a pleading look.

Kaneki sighed, “I’ll load up the car if you give me what you’re carrying.”

Hide brightened instantly, shoving the umbrella into Kaneki’s hands and kissing him on the cheek.

“You’re the best, babe!” He said as he ran off.

 _Damn him_.

Kaneki had finished loading up the car by the time Hide got back, a large and already melting soft serve ice cream in his hands.

“You’re finishing that thing out here so it doesn’t melt all over the seat.”

“Mmm,” Hide mumbled, licking a bit of the melted white cream off his hand.

Deciding that ice cream should be illegal, Kaneki took the opportunity to change out of his soaking wet shirt into the dry shirt he had brought for the ride home. He definitely hadn’t been waiting to change until Hide got back and could see him.

Hide licked his cone while he watched Kaneki change. “Nice,” he grinned.

“Sh-shut up,” Kaneki said, looking away as though that wasn’t exactly the reaction he had been looking for.

“Can’t help it, my boyfriend is just so damn hot-”

“Finish your cone!”

Kaneki leaned on the car, watching as Hide finished his ice cream in record time. Kaneki thought Hide’s methodical licking of every finger to make sure he cleaned up the drips was highly unnecessary.

“R-ready to go?” Kaneki asked, coughing a little.

“Yep!” Hide said. “Just pass me my shirt.”

Kaneki watched Hide cover up with a distinct sense of loss and felt that maybe he understood why Hide had complained so much about him wearing a shirt while swimming.

They got into the car and started making their way home. Kaneki had to admit that the red and gold sunset reflecting off the water was rather pretty.

“Ugh, it feels like summer’s almost over,” Hide groaned. “That’s depressing.”

“We still have time,” Kaneki said. “Maybe we’ll even head to beach again before it’s over.”

Hide perked up at that.

“So you _did_ have fun,” Hide grinned.

“I did not say that.”

“Hmm,” Hide said, still smirking.

“I suppose there are some good things about it,” Kaneki said shyly.

“Oh? Like what?”

“Like…” Kaneki could not believe what he was about to do. He put his hand on Hide’s knee and drifted his hand up Hide’s inner thigh until he was _dangerously_ close to a certain area.

“K-Kaneki?” Hide squeaked, his face as red as the sunset behind him. “Shouldn’t you be concentrating on driving?”

“I was just thinking that I don’t object to seeing my boyfriend half-naked and soaking wet.”

“ _Kaneki_!”

Kaneki smirked and took his hand off of Hide’s thigh.

“Sorry I can’t… swim without a shirt on,” Kaneki said, suddenly embarrassed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hide said gently. “I just want you to be comfortable.”

Kaneki smiled.

“Well…,” Kaneki said slowly. “When we get home you’ll be seeing me with a lot more than just my shirt off.”

He glanced at Hide and quickly added, “If you want, that is.”

“I do want,” Hide said, leaning over to kiss Kaneki on the cheek again. “I want very much.”

Hide smiled and leaned back on his seat, watching the scenery go by out the window, but Kaneki could have sworn he heard him mumble something under his breath.

“ _God_ , I love going to the beach”.


End file.
